CWGT3
Season three (CWGT3) of the Crapwagon.com Grand Touring World Offline Series commenced in Louisville, Kentucky on February 3, 2005 with the UPS Prequalifying Heats for the Dixieanna Winter Enduro, and was originally scheduled to end at the Nurburgring on March 19 with the 24 Hours - which ended with Stalker and ABES tied for the standings lead. However, due to the new McBVision broadcast contract, the championship-deciding sudden death format was extended into a "first to pass whoever was tied for first place after the Ring" system, which allowed SpeedQueen to sneak by the original contenders - and McB - for her only CWGT title, with a win at the 51st event of the year in Brno, Czech Republic around April 7, 2005. CWGT3 marked the beginning of the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) era in the virtual sportscar series, a massive upgrade in power and grip over the GTX/extended Trans-Am vehicles that had been in use since the predecessor OSCRA GT series in fall 2004. The 24 Heures du Spa-Francorchamps was taken by RobGuru, while ABES finally broke through and won LeMans after going winless his first 77 career races. Stalker notably won the events at Louisville, Bowman Gray and Dover, thus earning a reputation as the short track queen of the series. Paper won the 24h-rennen Nurburgring presented by Jolt Cola, the first ever at Nordscheliefe to make the full scheduled distance! __TOC__ Top Stories The biggest news, as noted, was the formula switch between seasons 2 and 3. With that in mind, the new manufacturers were unveiled around the time of CWGT2 LeMans to prepare all the teams and participants for equipment changes. Returning to the schedule for season 3 was Spa-Francorchamps, restoring the CWGT endurance triple crown once more. Also, the influence of nascent broadcast partner McBVision led - ironically, given virtual television entrepreneur McB's extreme loathing of oval racing - to a major addition of roundy-rounds on non-road course circuits. Due to the influx of new virtual makes in virtual sports car racing, a Constructor's Championship was introduced, as was the patently ridiculous Firestone Wilderness Cup for tire manufacturers (which can be construed roughly as a parody of Champcar's Nations Cup and other frivolous sub-championships). Denith and SimRacin40 were several of the drivers who wanted a points system - a wish that would be fulfilled in the following campaign. As NRTV's limitations became clear early in the season, McBVision unveiled two new technologies for CWGT: the screenshot-based McBVision Classic and the live-streaming, just-like-real-motorsports CWGTv, both of which have revolutionized virtual racing telecasts. CWGTv was debuted in a non-points race that McB won - when in theory, McBVision's rights as broadcaster and co-director meant this race could have counted. Season 3 The introduction of the prototype formula led to the first true silly season in series history, with many ride and manufacturer switches occurring en masse. At the Crapwagon.com Racing Team (CWRT), TheStranger secured a virtual deal to become the factory Porsche outfit (which also encompassed Mazza19's satellite squad Crapwagon Racing EuroPacific), and shuffled his lineup a bit: Caspar moved to the #75 when Hosehead amicably struck out on his own in the #3 Rothmans Canada Porsche, while thebigtymer also departed to run a single-car operation, the #65 EDS Chevrolet. TheStranger gained primary sponsorship from BP and Preston Henn's Swap Shop (after the Swap Shop team had run Cigar2 in a single-car effort in CWGT2), while Dan Belcher remained in Slim Jim colors. McB's team continued to cycle through manufacturers, running both a Coca-Cola Porsche and an unsponsored burnt orange Mazda. In a precursor to the future power of his motorsports and virtual television empire, he hired on the then-unproven BooBoo to drive a #66 Deathmobile Jaguar, a move that has paid off many times over in the years since. Later on in the season, the extreme allure of yen was too much for McB to resist and he switched over to Nissan, setting the stage for some of the crazy storylines in CWGT4. In becoming the first true superteam in CWGT, Padremobile expanded massively in the offseason, acquiring the original ChampcarFanatics outfit and thus adding Stalker, mclark2112, and Meesh to the stable. Debuting for Padremobile as well were Arundo Donax, HotDaug, and Tiger911, with Padre and Doft continuing from past years. (Madre was originally entered at Louisville, but withdrew her entry to allow for garage space for what had become an 8-car outfit; she however did make three appearances later in the season.) Crappysburg added a second car to its plate with the addition of rookie Lvess. Savage Media brought on another car too, the distinctively artsy livery sported by Sparky. Also expanding their operation that season was Elmo Experiments, who introduced newcomer Boogie711 to the series - a driver who would be well-remembered long after this season, albeit not for anything (at the time) involving winning. Chief's departure from CWGT gave cartcanuck the opportunity to sign on board with John Player Special, in a Jaguar. Many debutantes saw the affordable prototypes as a chance to run one car and get into the fray: Mazatleco17, Disclaimer, Goobers, phoneguy, Sonic Enforcer, dsriggs, Brake Check and Mike123z. FCYTravis, who had been runner-up in both seasons 1 and 2 for GP Motorsports, became a one-car Dyson entry with the retirement of Greg Pizzo from virtual racing. After this season, MHF and FlyingBuckeyeC1 left CWGT, as did Caspar and HotDaug. A mid-campaign switch from Mazda to Sauber-Mercedes (in an unsponsored wood panel prototype) did not do anything for Mr. Vengeance's fortunes. With the extreme level of interest the new carshapes offered to the virtual public, CWGT now averaged 46 roster spots per event. A spotter's guide was made available here after this series of paintscheme previews . CWGT3 Team Chart Teams are listed in order of when they first participated in the series. Sponsors are listed without specifying which events they ran on the car. Rookies are marked with '®'. Season 3 title-holder SpeedQueen is marked in bold. Due to the inauguration of the Firestone Wilderness Cup, tire manufacturers are denoted for the first time. *CREP was a subsidiary of CWRT until the Season 5 merger of CWRT and d.tuned Events Season 3 thread Race length is noted in parentheses when not made obvious by the event name. Races marked with "D" were sudden-death rounds after the original regular season of 37 races were not enough to crown a champion. Race Results Selected Race Summaries Round 9 - Bowman Gray The second ever Humpy Wheeler 500-Lap Enduro Spectacular saw Stalker DOMINATE, with 313 of the event's laps led by the #24 on the way to her second of three short-oval wins in her breakout season. Round 12 - Portland Brake Check's only win in CWGT occurred while upside down - a then-record for shortest event in series history, at 4 completed laps after extreme attrition. Round 14 - 24 Hours of LeMans ABES took the lead in the 14th hour of the event...and started to pull away as other cars broke. Then his car suffered damage at the 18 hour mark! Mazza19 appeared ready to pounce, hungry for his first ever 24 hour victory. A scoring computer crash though at 21 hours dashed those hopes (and would make the youngster from Alabama wait several more years for the ultimate triumph)...finally getting ABES off the schneid after 77 events without a victory! Round 16 - Silverstone So...yeah. 33 car pileup to start it all. Wow. That's not exactly a stat that has been surpassed under normal circumstances...and yet somehow, enough vehicles remained in service afterward to complete all 6 hours. Dan Belcher led quite a bit in the middle stages of the race...only to find himself taken out by ABES with 85 minutes left, paving the way for teammate Mazza19 to sail to victory 4 laps ahead of McB (who did overcome flipping his unsponsored "Moosehead Pee" Mazda in the early going). Round 19 - Bathurst Following in the footsteps of his wife's performance at Sandown in CWGT1, Padre took the checkered flag in pit lane at an Australian event - in another close call. He crossed the line at pit speed just 3 seconds ahead of Travis who was rumbling as fast as he could down the frontstretch. Round 21 - Dover Downs The inaugural Ben Dover 200 (a race created by McBVision) saw Boogie711 leading during the latter half the race...only to suffer a terminal tire issue with 13 to go, paving the way for yet another Stalker victory at a bullring. Round 27 - Riverside Mike123z looked like he was going to notch a victory at the prestigious six hour event in Southern California...but got wrecked by Stalker with 95 minutes left, allowing Dan Belcher the opportunity to contend up front. Broadcast partner McB had an okay run in the final hour - even leading with 16 minutes to go - only to pit, resulting in a trip to victory lane for the Louisville-based Mr. Belcher. Round 31 - Norisring Evil Wilke held the point with a handful of laps remaining, but 16 1994 wanted a shot at glory, leading to a chrome horn run with 2 to go. Unfortunately, 16 1994 came out worse in the encounter, and the West Coast Choppers Jaguar brought EW another trophy. Round 35 - Monza CWGT visited Italy's premiere road course for the first time (and the only time that the series has neither run a full 1000km or used the long course that incorporates the banked superspeedway layhout), a carnage-filled afternoon which saw ABES tie Stalker for the championship lead after winning by a stunning 48 laps over FCYTravis. Round 36 - 24 Hours of the Nurburgring After four hours, Paper found himself in the top three at the Nordschleife - and from the 11th hour on, the race was his, the first ever Nurburgring event that CWGT where able to reach the full 24 hour distance! Round 37D - Riverside #2 With the new McBvision-driven system of not ending CWGT3 until someone had reached their 4th win (as Stalker and ABES were tied with 3 at the conclusion of the 24 Hours of the Ring), broadcast partner McB brought Nissan its first ever CWGT checkered flag at his home track. Round 40D - Hockenheim BooBoo took his first ever CWGT win (the first for a car McB owned, rather than drove) in the short 100 mile event here...and then wondered out loud in victory lane, "Is this how a dynasty starts?" Well. Round 41D - Birmingham Not controversial at the time, but intriguing to look back at in later seasons - Kingsnake2012 was declared winner after he completed the total distance before attrition first...but SimRacin40 actually completed that lap as well and THEN went further on the track before breaking. Unfortunately for JWR, at the time, the Edict of Rome that was used to provide a conclusion to intrigue in Season 7 was not in place. Thankfully, the usage (or lack thereof) of the Rome policies back then would not have affected the championship battle. Round 44D - Ontario Talk about painful. Stalker held the lead 40 laps into the event...and then got wrecked by teammate and husband mclark2112 just moments later, ending what turned out to be her last great shot at taking the Season 3 title. Instead, Brake Check and cartcanuck had a spirited battle late, only to each have to pit for fuel with 3 to go. This enabled Evil Wilke to sneak into victory lane. Round 51D - Brno So Boogie711 had already established a reputation as being unable to seal the deal late. But this time, his foibles would bring CWGT3 to a close! While leading late at the Czech road course, the Checkmate #00 suddenly found itself in the tires - a major break for 2nd place SpeedQueen, who assumed the lead and cruised on to victory, thereby becoming the new champion of the Crapwagon.com Grand Touring Offline World Series, the first prototype-era titleholder! Full Series Results Award Winners Category:Seasons